Winifred Mak

Dr. Mak is brilliant. Had I listened to her originally I would have been further along in this process. I trust her completely and appreciate her dedication to my case. Not only does she personally respond to e-mails she checks up on you during appointments. She never makes us feel uncomfortable and throughly explains everything. It’s also nice that I get to personally see her for my visits rather than being pawned off because she’s a really busy doctor.

Be ready to hear the truth and accept it. She has great bedside manner but everything she is telling you is fact and it’s better to absorb than to run from it.

RMA of Austin makes you feel like a person and not like a number. Dr.Mak will personally respond to emails. Her team will talk you through everything and don’t make you feel bad for not being able to afford treatments. They work to find you alternatives instead.

I haven’t had any cycles yet, but we are in the prep phase. We had a minor set back during the mock transfer that is all cleaned up now. I did 3 months on Lupron and now we are ready to start invocell ivf.

Brittany and Rikki are amazing. They make me feel comfortable even though I ask a million questions. My coordinator Collins has replied to every email and answered every question. She did everything she could to help me work with my insurance. They’re all great people.

Being close to downtown Austin can be intimidating, but parking is free with validation. The clinic staff will ensure you have that before you leave. Each member on your way in and out greet you and know you by name despite having so many patients. The facility is warm and welcoming.

My invocell is going to be $8600. My past treatments (mock transfer and saline ultrasound) were under $400.

None. Dr. Mak explained the risks I could face with doing a multiple transfer and I accept that a single is my best route.

Pros: Dr. Mak is hands-on, compassionate and knowledgeable. I appreciated that she responded to my concerns and, upon prompting, came up with adjustments in my protocol after unsuccessful ivf cycles. Cons: Not always, but one time, I had to be the one to “push” for her to consult with her colleagues about my situation. I would have much preferred more initiative from my doctor at that time, especially when she was unable to pinpoint the cause of my condition. She may not be the best communicator, as she failed to mention two important things in my case: (1) repeated cancelled ivf cycles can become reason for Yale Fertility to deny me future cycles and (2) she was leaving the practice for another state in two months. I had to find out via a letter from the clinic that she was leaving the practice!

Be proactive in finding out about the different protocols that can be applied to you, ask for ideas on how they can be improved upon based on past results, ask for reasoning / rationale behind chosen protocols, try to get a second opinion for difficult cases.

Dr. Mak replied to all concerns and was available via email and phone. She took time to listen and genuinely care for my well-being.

Patty is compassionate, knowledgeable, and skilled. I appreciated how she took the time to teach me how to administer meds.

Yale Fertility’s Westport office is nice because it is small and so you know who you’ll be seeing each time. They are all friendly and welcoming. The negatives are mostly related to the fact that all major procedures are done at the main office / hospital in New Haven and weekend monitorings are held there as well. Also, you will be forced to trek to New Haven for monitoring when the Westport office is closed or when Patty is away at a conference or on vacation. The Westport office was closed on a lot of holidays and frequently on some random days without more than a day’s notice. It would have been nice to be given more advance notice about days when monitoring would only be available in New Haven, especially since vacations and conferences are usually scheduled in advance.

Monitoring hours were early in the morning, first come, first served. The waits at Westport office varied. Sometimes it would be fast, other times it could be an hour before I was out the door. You would have to get there first in order to make sure you wouldn’t have to wait / be delayed. New Haven monitoring hours were also early in the morning, first come, first served. There was always a lot of people waiting, always a wait. There is one nurse who draws blood in New Haven that is going through menopause and needs to keep a fan blowing in the tiny room where they draw blood. I didn’t think it was sanitary to blow air from the ground and all around the room, but no one seemed to care. Ultrasound monitorings were conducted by random people in New Haven, which resulted in inconsistent measurements, making it hard to figure out exactly how my follicles were progressing. It turns out that measurements can be taken differently, based on who is taking them. E.g., the same follicle can measure size 7 from one person, and 9 or 6 from others.

I was covered under insurance, but they had a self-pay pkg for embryo banking (retrieval only) that cost $12,900, including cost of monitoring and retrieval.

I felt confident in my care with Dr. Mak, she took me over as a patient when my Dr, Ryan Martin left the practice. She was always clear and compassionate. After my third failed IUI, I wanted to do another one and she recommended we go forward with an IVF cycle, and I'm glad that she did as I am now 6 and a half months pregnant. My only complaint really, is that when I was prescribed Misoprostal for a miscarriage, she did not adequately explain the level of pain I was in store for. I really should have been provided a stronger pain medication.

Be sure to ask a lot of questions, she will spend the time to answer them, but may not always offer up all the details at first. Also, it's good to know that Dr. Mak and Yale Fertility in general, tend to lean on the conservative side so she had recommended we only transfer one embryo with our first cycle. Ultimately my husband and I decided to transfer 2 embryos to better our chances and Dr. Mak was understanding of our decision.

Dr. Mak always came into the room having reviewed my information which I appreciated. She took her time with me to explain things, I never felt rushed. When she was giving me negative news, she did so with compassion.

I did 3 IUI cycles, each time with Letrizole by mouth taken on days 3–7 of my period, followed by an Ovidrel trigger injection the night before IUI. After the first cycle failed, by Letrizole dose was increased. The second IUI cycle resulted in a miscarriage (growth stopped around 5.5 weeks, and misoprostal was taken to pass the embryo around week 11). After the 3rd failed IUI, plans were made to do an IVF cycle. I started with taking Norethindrone, and Metformin to prevent hyperstimulation (this was a suggestion from my MD husband who had done some research). I then did a combination of low dose Gonal-F, Menopur and Follistim. My follicle growth was monitored every other day along with bloodwork. Once ready, I did an intramuscular HCG trigger shot. I was also taking doxycycln at some point during the injection period. I then did a retrieval procedure (performed by a different Dr.) and had my transfer 5 days later, tranferring 2 embryos. The transfer was in May of this year (2017) and I am currently 6.5 months pregnant with a singleton. It should also be noted that I sought weekly accupuncture treatment for the 6 months prior to my IVF treatment. I also had acupuncture before my retrieval, before and after my transfer.

The nursing staff was always warm, patient and informative.

Yale's strengths: strong team of qualified Dr's and Nurses, an organized system to manage the frequent morning bloodwork/ultrasounds, convenient location, great use of the online MyChart portal to comprehensively post and notify you of test results, upcoming appointments, and a convenient way to communicate with your care team. Contacting the front desk for scheduling, questions, etc was always difficult. Their front desk team was not always patient/friendly. They didn't adequately prepare me for the pain of passing a miscarriage with misoprostal

It was a bit of a cattle call, but I understood why it needed to be that way, it seemed to be the most efficient way to handle the volume and frequency of the monitoring.

Our insurance covered up to $8,000 lifetime toward fertility treatments. We roughly paid around $12,000 out of pocket after 3 IUIs, testing, and 1 IVF cycle.

Yale tends to recommend only transferring 1 embryo on your first transfer attempt, more conservative than what I've heard about other practices.